Let EU citizens decide if they want to fund the occupation of Palestine

The European Union as an organization won the Nobel peace prize in 2012, much to the chagrin of many EU nationals, who watch on with dismay at EU’s lack of leadership and ‘hands-off’ approach to peace, international relations, and human rights beyond its borders, over the past several years.

One of the main obstacles to achieving peace in the Middle East is the continuing land-grab by the state of Israel in the West Bank, which is progressively making the formation of a viable Palestinian state a factual impossibility. The not-so-veiled objective of an extraordinarily short-sighted Israeli leadership is to put the international community before a de facto annexation of the Palestinian territories to Israel, an annexation that will turn long-term peace in the middle east and the respect of the human rights of Palestinians — as well as the preservation of democracy itself in Israel — into a mirage.

By international law, all Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem are illegal, and the EU has never budged on that basic principle. At least not in theory. Truth is, despite its supposed commitment to peace and human rights, the EU is and has been all too willing to look away when Israel has defied the international law and trampled on the human rights of Palestinians. Far from promoting peace, this EU (non)stance is exacerbating problems that have been festering for decades and have been undermining any hope for peace in that area of the world — and not just that area, as history teaches us. EU’s double standard on Israel is also diminishing its moral and political standing within and without, and contributing to the disaffection that many Europeans now feel for the EU as an idea.

The time has come for the EU to act and to do so coherently with the principles on which it was founded and with the international laws it has never reneged. As pointed out by former EU heads of state Mary Robinson (former president of Ireland) and Martti Ahtisaari (Nobel peace prize laureate and former president of Finland) in an article published in the Guardian, Europe imports 15 times as many goods from the Israeli settlements as it does from the Palestinians. What’s more, most EU consumers do not have the means to distinguish goods produced in illegal settlements in the occupied territories from those produced in Israel. By buying merchandise produced in the occupied territories, these EU consumers may be unwittingly funding Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory, thus undermining peace, human rights and the rule of law.

The UK and Denmark, two long-term EU members, have adopted simple labeling guidelines that enable consumers to distinguish between products from settlements, those made in Israel, and Palestinian products. These countries have done nothing more than what already required by EU consumer protection legislation.

We, the undersigned, espouse the principle stated by Robinson and Ahtisaari in the mentioned article that “[c]orrect labeling of settlement goods is not an anti-Israeli policy. It is pro-consumer, pro-peace and pro-international law.” We, therefore, urge you to show leadership within the European Parliament and the European Commission to make sure that labeling regulations similar to those already existing the UK and Denmark are implemented across the European Union without delay.

All consumers throughout the EU have the right to make an informed choice on whether they want to buy goods produced in illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

Thank you very much for your attention.